FullReads

“Of course!” said Leonidas.

“That’s a good boy, and I know you will keep your word.” She hesitated a moment, smilingly and tentatively, and then held out a bright half-dollar. Leonidas backed from the fence. “I’d rather not,” he said shyly.

“But as a present from ME?”

Leonidas colored–he was really proud; and he was also bright enough to understand that the possession of such unbounded wealth would provoke dangerous inquiry at home. But he didn’t like to say it, and only replied, “I can’t.”

She looked at him curiously. “Then–thank you,” she said, offering her white hand, which felt like a bird in his. “Now run on, and don’t let me keep you any longer.” She drew back from the fence as she spoke, and waved him a pretty farewell. Leonidas, half sorry, half relieved, darted away.

He ran to the post-office, which he never had done before. Loyally he never looked at her letter, nor, indeed, at his own again, swinging the hand that held them far from his side. He entered the post-office directly, going at once to the letter-box and depositing the precious missive with the others. The post-office was also the “country store,” and Leonidas was in the habit of still further protracting his errands there by lingering in that stimulating atmosphere of sugar, cheese, and coffee. But to-day his stay was brief, so transitory that the postmaster himself inferred audibly that “old man Boone must have been tanning Lee with a hickory switch.” But the simple reason was that Leonidas wished to go back to the stockade fence and the fair stranger, if haply she was still there. His heart sank as, breathless with unwonted haste, he reached the clearing and the empty buckeye shade. He walked slowly and with sad diffidence by the deserted stockade fence. But presently his quick eye discerned a glint of white among the laurels near the house. It was SHE, walking with apparent indifference away from him towards the corner of the clearing and the road. But this he knew would bring her to the end of the stockade fence, where he must pass–and it did. She turned to him with a bright smile of affected surprise. “Why, you’re as swift-footed as Mercury!”

Leonidas understood her perfectly. Mercury was the other name for quicksilver–and that was lively, you bet! He had often spilt some on the floor to see it move. She must be awfully cute to have noticed it too–cuter than his sisters. He was quite breathless with pleasure.

“I put your letter in the box all right,” he burst out at last.

“Without any one seeing it?” she asked.

“Sure pop! nary one! The postmaster stuck out his hand to grab it, but I just let on that I didn’t see him, and shoved it in myself.”

“You’re as sharp as you’re good,” she said smilingly. “Now, there’s just ONE thing more I want you to do. Forget all about this–won’t you?”

Her voice was very caressing. Perhaps that was why he said boldly: “Yes, ma’am, all except YOU.”

“Dear me, what a compliment! How old are you?”

“Goin’ on fifteen,” said Leonidas confidently.

“And going very fast,” said the lady mischievously. “Well, then, you needn’t forget ME. On the contrary,” she added, after looking at him curiously, “I would rather you’d remember me. Good-by–or, rather, good-afternoon–if I’m to be remembered, Leon.”

“Good-afternoon, ma’am.”

She moved away, and presently disappeared among the laurels. But her last words were ringing in his ears. “Leon”–everybody else called him “Lee” for brevity; “Leon”–it was pretty as she said it.

He turned away. But it so chanced that their parting was not to pass unnoticed, for, looking up the hill, Leonidas perceived his elder sister and little brother coming down the road, and knew that they must have seen him from the hilltop. It was like their “snoopin'”!